Improvement in lining oil-barrels



UNITED STATES PATENT OEEIoE.

MERRITT G. HUNTLEY, OF GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, ASSIGNOR TO HIMSELF AND HARVEY BISSELL, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN LINING OIL-BARRELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 121,106, dated November 21, 1871.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, MERRITT G. HUNTLEY, of the city of Grand Rapids, county of Kent, and State of Michigan, have invented a certain new and useful Method or Process of Preparing Barrels, Tanks, &c., to be used for holding kerosene oil and other goods of a similar nature, to prevent leakage; that the same is fully, clearly, and sufficiently described in the specification given below.

The method of preparing a barrel or other vessel in accordance with my invention is as follows, viz.: Take the vessel to be prepared and apply to the inner surface a coat of melted glue with a brush. Allow the vessel thus glued to stand until the coat of glue is hardened, so as not to be easily removed by friction. Then apply on the inside of the vessel and upon the coat of glue a coat of shellac, the shellac used previously having been cut with alcohol or water in the ordinary manner. In vessels so constructed that the glue and shellac cannot be applied with the brush the glue may be melted and poured into the vessel and the vessel moved about until the inside is completely coated with the glue and the surplus of the glue removed. The vessel is then to stand until the glue coat has sufficiently hardened, when the shellac may be applied in precisely the same manner as the glue coat was applied, and the vessel is then ready to receive the oil either in its crude or refined state.

I am well aware that glue and shellac have been used together in a composition; and this I do not claim, as the gist of my invention consists in applying the glue in a heated condition, separately and first, to the inside of the barrel, so as to allow it to fill all the pores and openings of the inside of the barrel, and drying, to form a coating or surface perfectly impervious to the kerosene or oil. This coating would in itself be sufficient if there were not danger of the water, contained more or less in the crude oil, at once dissolving it. To avoid this shellac and other ingredients have heretofore been used in composition and combination with the glue, which composition, entering the pores of the wood, hardens, but not sufficiently to prevent its cracking, as experience has shown, by the handling of the barrels and thus opening the pores; and it is for this reason that I first apply the coating of glue, which firmly and solidly fills the pores of the wood but does not crack or break, as it hardens to a very high degree and then I protect this coating of glue by means of a coating of shellac, which prevents any water from getting to the glue. From this description it will be readily understood that the separate and successive ap plication of glue and shellac is greatly superior to the application of a single composition, although the latter may contain glue and shellac in the same solution.

Having thus described my invention, what 1 claim to have invented, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is

The herein-described method of rendering barrels or other wooden vessels impervious to oil by separate and successive applications of glue and shellac, substantially in the manner set forth.

MERRITT G. H UN TLE Y.

HARVEY BISSELL. 4o) 

